


23

by letterfromathief



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Birthday, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-07-19 16:35:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7369351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterfromathief/pseuds/letterfromathief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s my birthday and I don’t want to be alone,” but she's used to that - until she's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a Emma birthday fic and then spawned into something much longer, so expect a few more parts of this until it’s complete.

_Saturday, October 22nd_ is how Emma wakes up, the thought clutching at her sleep heavy mind as she clutches at air with one hand. She swings her wrist a bit just to make sure she can before curling her fist against the end of the mattress that she’s nearly falling off of. She exhales, only to turn and breathe in pillow that she knows isn’t her own. It’s too soft, scented differently, and there’s too much light on her closed eyelids for it to be her room.

There’s too much heat around her waist for it to be her bed.

Turning her head slightly, she opens her eyes to address her predicament, that being Killian’s arm holding her to him, the only thing keeping her from falling off his very comfortable bed onto the rough carpeted floor below - and, of course, the _Saturday, October 22nd_.

That she needs to address, but there are little things she’s yet to recover that deserve addressing, too.

Her senses being one of those things because he pulls her closer, dragging her away from the edge of the bed and she lets him without much protest, her throat still a little too dry to deliver any smart commands, her hands grabbing the sheets around her instead of pushing him away.

Her _goddamn_ senses being one of them because he mumbles her name, and then says it louder, “Emma, did you want breakfast?” and she doesn’t have a response to that besides -

“Uh?”

The little things are coming back far too slow for her.

Waking up on a Saturday morning in her classmate’s bed isn’t how she usually finds herself post parties, but it isn’t unfamiliar. Neither is the painting he has on his wall, just the one that she stares at until Killian chuckles, pressing his face into her neck. It stings a little - and _oh, buddy_ , she has beard burn on her neck and a bruise no doubt shaped like the lips he’s latching onto her neck again and if he worries that spot any more, she’ll have something much worse, a flush of want following the path of his hands down beneath the sheets.

He lifts away just to let out a burst of air on her neck, laughter catching him. “Trick question,” he says, “I’m making breakfast.”

“Actually I should go,” she says.

Neither of them move, so Emma waits a minute ( _far_ too slow), lets his hand stroke over her belly just a little longer, before she takes the initiative and tries to move away from him.

He pulls her back and she huffs while he groans, “Perhaps you should, but that doesn’t mean you must.”

Taking a different approach, she attempts to disentangle the sheets so she can get at his hands, but he fights her all the way, hands snaking lower, knuckles brushing her hip, fingers curling around her thigh, stroking closer to places they should not if she’s to leave this bed.

“Come on, dude,” Emma says when he tugs the sheet tighter around her, momentarily trapping her hands.

She’s trying to put some space in between them, in more ways than one, so it’s a mistake to look at him as she says it because (ignoring all the other reasons that it’s a mistake) he’s astute and his smile turns smug, his dimples deepening.

“Was I that skillful that I stole my very name from your lips?” he asks.

Emma opens her mouth and means to say something, but laughs instead. She gathers herself with difficulty, the laughter fading out only when he starts to sulk. Even though it’s not a bad look (which she sure as hell isn’t going to tell him), he punctuates the pouting jut of his lip with the poke of his fingers to her upper arm, and with her hands still trapped, she can’t fight back.

She tilts her head in cutting humor and says, “I don’t think that’s a compliment on your skill.”

His touch becomes deadly soft, stroking up her thigh to her belly, tickling and Emma hates it, she fucking hates the forced laughter of tickles, and hates that it isn’t even forced this time because , the look is ridiculous enough to keep the laughter going.

He’s so offended that it’s scrunching up his whole face. Either that or he’s trying not to smile.

Knowing him, for all that she knows him, all of the last two semesters of Art History sitting next to each other at the only conjoined desk in the room (“Like Kindergartners, Swan. Brilliant commentary on how I feel every time I step into this classroom”) and swapping notes, torrented textbook print outs and marked up scans of paintings…

Knowing him, it’s probably both.

“I daresay you may be right,” Killian says, confirming her suspicion. The grin breaks free of the frown and he pauses in assailing her with his tickling fingers to stare at her. He draws his face closer to hers, never breaking eye contact, and says, “I’ll take pointers, if you have them.”

She’s recovered all the little things now, addressed them, and now it’s the big thing left: _Saturday, October 22nd_. So, as he looks at her, blue eyes heavy lidded with more than sleep, Emma bites her lip, tongue smoothing over the kiss swollen skin, and thinks in all capital letters, “THIS IS A BAD IDEA.”

Killian waits, his hands stilled _and_ still on her, and Emma _thinks_ in racing snippets of words that there are things she could be doing, places she could make herself be.

“THIS IS A _BAD_ IDEA,” but Emma thinks, in small letters, a childish scrawl written across the insides of her eyes when she blinks, “It’s my birthday and I don’t want to be alone.”

But just because she doesn’t want to be alone doesn’t mean that she needs to tell him. It isn’t lying if she just fails to mention that; she, of all people, would know. Lying would be saying that birthday melancholy would be why she let Killian drag her up to his dorm last night and not that she was in desperate need of good sex post her awful bio exam.

(This isn’t lying; it’s just a bit selfish, but she has some leeway with that one. It _is_ her birthday.)

Emma leans in, pressing her forehead to his, and says, “Brush your teeth first, and breakfast?” She draws back and scrunches at that, meeting his offended look with one of her own. “This floor doesn't have a stove. What were you going to make me? A pop-tart?”

“Toaster strudel,” Killian corrects with a grin.

Emma snorts and pushes at his chest, yawning slightly around the, “I know growing up overseas warped your taste a bit, but pop-tarts are the only appropriate breakfast pastry.”

Killian rolls, moving away from her and leaving her bereft of warmth in one smooth motion to get off the bed and drag his boxers on, giving her an explanation she didn't actually need, “Will might be here and he doesn’t need the show.” He waggles his eyebrows at her, grin wide. “I do apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.”

Emma yawns again. Deliberately, but it doesn’t fade his smile as he peeks open the door to his room and leaves. Emma takes the minutes he’s gone to gather her clothes and she’s halfway to fully dressed when he returns, her jeans on and buttoned, her bra hanging off her shoulders.

“I can help with that,” Killian offers.

“Like you were being helpful a few minutes ago?” Emma rolls her eyes. “Which toothbrush is yours? I’m borrowing it,” Emma asks.

“Blue and black one,” Killian tells her as she hooks her bra finally and throws her shirt over her head.

She feels it, so he doesn’t really need to say it, but he does anyway.

“Your hair looks like a rat’s nest,” Killian remarks.

Emma quickly grumbles, “Okay, then do something about it.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a brush on hand, Swan?”

“I don’t even have a bag,” Emma reminds him.

She pats her jeans pockets to make sure she still has her room key and her dining card, while Killian tsks gently, and says, “Leave it to me, as always, my dear, to give you what you need.”

Her stomach clenches at that but she ignores the bubble of discomfort until he grabs his brush off his desk, an imposing looking thing that she frowns at.

Killian climbs up behind her on the bed, and promises, “I’ll be careful.”

“Mmm.”

He _is_ careful when he coaxes the brush through the most tangled knot with a delicate touch. Emma stares straight forward at the bare opposite wall, realizes that her breathing’s gone uneven and focuses on fixing that instead of how gentle he is with her, how good it feels when he runs his fingers over her scalp before running the brush through her hair. She’s so focused, but she still notices when he pauses - doesn’t know what he pauses to do until he comments, “It’s wavier than usual.”

“Sometimes I curl it,” Emma says.

She purses her lips after that, doesn’t know why that seemed the right thing to say. She feels him nod, as close as he leans in, she feels his nose brush through her hair, the inhale before his breath hits the back of her neck.

“Want me to put it up?” he asks.

It’s her turn to nod, to do nothing more than pass back the hair tie and try to breathe - deep inhale, solid exhale.

“Looks good, if I do say so myself,” Killian says after he’s pulled her hair back and put it up in a higher ponytail than she would usually wear.

“We still have time for brunch in the lower cafe if we hurry,” he says.

Emma jerks to attention at that, stops leaning into his touch as she teeters on the edge of a decision. She could excuse herself now, go back to her dorm, shower, wait for the upper cafe to open to grab lunch and attempt the essay due Tuesday.

“This isn’t hurrying, Swan. We’re going to miss the pancakes,” Killian teases.

“And we wouldn’t want _that_ ,” Emma draws it out with a roll of her eyes.

Killian pushes against her back and says, “We wouldn’t.”

-

By the time they get to the lower cafe, it’s too late for pancakes but Killian makes her a waffle and she snags that last of the strawberries before the tired looking senior can, so she spends the rest of the morning slapping his hand away from her whipped cream and syrup doused plate. She spends the afternoon with his hands in other places, and when she wakes up in the evening, it’s in her own bed, a mirror of this morning with Killian’s arm still thrown around her, and _Saturday_ , _October 22nd_ weighing on her sleepy mind until it fades into Sunday October 23rd, and Monday October 24th, Tuesday October 25th…


	2. Chapter 2

Killian celebrates his birthday in February with “A Party So Big the Heavens Can See It,” dubbed so by Will, a surprisingly fitting label coming from him. It happens to fall in the quiet weeks between the start of the semester and midterms, so there’s a turnout at the frat that Emma isn’t exactly expecting. Killian’s friendly, but she doesn’t think so many people would be offering him birthday wishes (and presents, a ridiculous amount of $5 gift cards to the campus Starbucks) if Ruby hadn’t spread the word of a party and Jefferson and Victor hadn’t promised the music and drinks.

It’s cold as all hell outside and yet Emma finds herself there, on the back porch of the house, icy wind raking through her hair - and his fingers, too, as he tugs her even closer, nudging her nose in his desperation to deepen the kiss. His tongue strokes over her bottom lip, seeking entrance and finds it when Emma parts on a breath that’s quickly swallowed up by his kiss. The music is loud enough that Emma can hear it even through the closed door, but the rat-a-tat beat of her heart is louder, dancing in harmony with his other hand, riding up her side.

He draws back momentarily and sighs, “Shall we retire?”

_Retire._ Emma shakes her head, her forehead brushing his as she smiles.

“And abandon your party?” Emma asks.

“Not really my party,” Killian says.

He’s a little tipsy because he keeps shaking his head even after he makes his point. It’s charming, in a way, or perhaps she only finds it so because she’s tipsy herself and when he smiles in encouragement, his cheeks dimple and it makes him look...warm. Like if she just moves in and captures his lips again, she won’t feel the cold at all.

And it only makes sense that she should test this theory, pressing her lips to his in the barest of touches. Still, she feels the warmth wash over her, her cheeks surely red with it, her thighs parting with it, eager for more of him against her.

Hypothesis tested and proven, she drops back down on her heels, and she says, “Alright, sailor, let’s abandon ship.”

Killian perks up at that, probably because any other day she’d refuse to acknowledge his insistence that being captain of the rowing team makes him akin to some kind of naval officer. Laughing, he tugs her against him, grinding into her just once - but once is enough. Emma stumbles backwards, taking him with her, but he’s just as uncoordinated as she is, his hand nearly slipping out of her grasp before he tightens his grip and pulls her alongside him.

They make it back to her dorm in record time, considering how gingerly they walk over the patches of ice along the pathway as to avoid a very untimely visit to the hospital. He’s giddy as she tugs him into her room - no other word for the way he very much (no matter how much he’ll deny it later) giggles as he tries to kiss her. He tries to smother his giggles with her skin but it’s the fall that cuts them short, hitting the mattress hard when she very unceremoniously pushes him away. He’s quick to gather himself, fumbling his shoes and jacket off before he scoots back onto the bed, leaving no room for her to do much but climb atop him.

She’s a little giddy, too, because she doesn’t even complain, merely strips off her jacket, and then her top, which she throws in the direction of the dirty pile (as opposed to the clean pile, she hopes). She’s too preoccupied to check, on a mission now that his gaze has fixed firmly on her chest. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and she forgoes the lazy strip to unsnap her bra with quick hands and send it flying _definitely_ in the direction of the clean pile.

She doesn’t bother with her pants. They can get to that later, when his mouth on her breast isn’t enough to satisfy her. With an ungraceful hop, she clambers onto the bed. She elbows him trying to sit up and he curses, “Oi! Are you trying to kill me?”

“Maybe,” she says just to be contrary.

“Let’s save the grievous injuries for later,” he says. He reaches up to cup her breasts, but she bats his hands away so he wraps them around her waist instead, using them to help her get where she needs to be, right where he’s straining against his jeans. She finds the perfect position before she presses down, making them both groan in relief.

It only occurs to her once she’s firmly settled in his lap and meets the heady glint in his eyes - it only occurs to her when he just stares at her, unusually silent, that it’s his birthday. That there’s “a party so big the heavens can see it” and enough Starbucks gift cards to keep him on a coffee high for the rest of the school year waiting for him and he’s here with her. He’s choosing to spend his birthday with her.

Knowingly so.

She’s struck by a strange mixture of happiness and guilt. She never told him about her birthday, didn’t have any plans to tell him. And even though he’s looking at her, his expression so open - she could tell him anything, anything at all - she still has no plans to confess to him.

Not that she has anything to confess. It isn’t a crime not to tell him. But she didn’t want to be alone on her birthday and he has this opportunity to spend his surrounded by people, and he’s spending it in her room. While birthday sex has its pros (she knows and for weeks afterwards she had the hickeys on her chest to prove it), still -

She’s torn between just finishing what they’ve started and kicking him out. It is three semesters now that she’s known him. Counting time has always been an easy way to keep her safe, and she’s counting the time she’s spent with him the way she did with every foster family after the Swans, hoping that they’d be the one to break the record and keep her for longer than three years. The way she did with every friendship she made - Lily lasted longer than most, and every relationship - not that she made the effort for them to last longer than Neal or even last longer than a night.

Emma’s counting and it only takes one shuddered, sobering breath for her to realize that she’d like to keep counting. She nearly loses all balance when Killian moves, but his hands are still on her waist and he moves her with him, rolling them on to their sides without any painful encounters with their limbs and the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asks, just a little panicky.

He must’ve seen it written across her face, the indecision, and she could smack herself for being so obvious but he takes the hand not crushed beneath her in his so she can’t follow through.

“As enticing as having you above me is, I don’t think I’m actually up for indulging in amorous activities,” he says.

He catches her eyes and she catches the hint of a dimple though he’s not quite smiling yet. Her heart hammers unevenly in her chest; he certainly felt like he was up for indulging, and she hears it, sees the half-truth. Killian rubs his thumb over her knuckles, distracting her with the trail of heat.

“Do you mind if I sleep it off here? I’m sure the bass will be too loud in my own room for me to get any sleep and I -”

He stops, and he releases her hand so he can scratch at his neck, a telltale sign that he’s embarrassed by the words about to come out of his mouth.

He sighs, whispers a curse - “bloody hell” - and says, “I’d like to end my birthday on a high note this year.”

That he’d be embarrassed to say that she’s a better birthday than his last stings a bit, but she shrugs it off, forces a disbelieving tilt of her head and says, “Sleeping in a twin bed with the cheapest mattress Res Life could get away with is a high note?”

Killian laughs, “Well when you put it that way…”

She twists around to face the wall, giving him both the figurative and literal cold shoulder, her comforter stuck beneath them and the heat on too low as it always is during the night. She shivers a little, wishing she’d decided to have second thoughts before she took her shirt off.

Killian moves in though, and he’s warm enough to chase the cold away. He starts to hum and she doesn’t recognize the song until, voice low and words practically pressed into her skin, he sings, “Darling you’ve got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go?”

She twists around again to glare at him, finds him grinning, the smile so smug that she pokes at his chest and is helpless but to say, “You can stay, alright.”

“Knew you wouldn’t toss me into the cold, Swan,” he says. He lets go of the grin, only to smile again, softer and yet happier. “Knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

“Happy birthday,” she says.

She’s sure that she says it with every ounce of sarcasm she can infuse it with. So certain of this that she can ignore how she feels breathless afterwards, how just looking at him makes her warm.

She can ignore how he looks like he might kiss her and closes her eyes instead.

-

She wakes up warm and it’s nice until she realizes that it’s his jacket draped over her, not the comforter, and she shudders with her laughter, near to tears by the time he groans, “When I asked to sleep over here, it was to avoid the noise, Swan.”

Killian’s eyes are still shut, stubbornly so.

“Alright, I’ll give you your beauty sleep,” she says. She looks at him, his hair sticking up at all angles, and says, “You certainly need it.”

“Oi,” he protests, rather ineffectively.

His jacket slips off her as she sits up, and she’s instantly cold. She considers the comforter beneath him, considers the sweaters draped over the back of her chair, just out of reach, and decides to slip into his jacket instead. She lays back down, jacket zipped up to her chin and her hands curled up in the sleeves, and she listens to him breathe until she falls back asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

A huff and the swift flip of a page, and it’s just the fourth time Emma has brushed him off with a heavy breath. The ninth time she’s brushed him off if he’s counting her silences to his words. The tenth time when he counts the slight frown she’s pressing into her binder, nose pressed to the page and eyes squinted at her messy scrawl even though she’s wearing her glasses.

She snapped at him when he mentioned them, her contacts needed cleaning and she can’t go out to Target to get more solution in this fucking weather, and why does it even fucking matter? They’re just glasses.

Ones that Killian loves to see perched on her nose, when the wide red frames match the red leather she’s wearing and she didn’t even notice that she’s coordinated her outfit, but Ruby’s eager to point it out and draw out a matching blush on Emma’s face.

Yeah, they matter.

Which obviously _doesn’t_ matter at the moment, as Killian is finally acknowledging the pattern she’s stuck to since she swung open the door to her room with a hard set to her lips and the squeeze ball David had given her as a joke to cool her hot head stabbed through with her pen. She was still squeezing it even though the ink from the broken pen spilled from the tear in the ball like blue blood, very alien-like, that could’ve made her laugh any other day. She seemed not to notice it starting to reach her fingers and dropped it, letting it roll under her desk while she plopped back down on the bed.

He sees it now, and well, as much as Killian knows Emma, sometimes he doesn’t recognize when she needs a pull and not a push, him pulling away from her so she can work out things on her own and in her own time.

Killian is used to giving her light pushes - drawing her out with them when she thinks it’s better if she stay locked up in her room because she doesn’t want to ruin their mood with her quiet; confronting her about her avoidance when the last time they were together, they’d spent the entire night holed up in the library in something less like the study sessions they usually have together and not like their hookups, but somewhere closer to _more_.

If he were more certain of her feelings, he’d have pushed long ago. He’s patient as hell - someone committed to an eternity of it - but it’s a bit like true suffering to be so...so...he doesn’t want to say it even to himself because then he’ll just feel _worse_.

Pushing isn’t working. Not today.

Killian closes his textbook and reaches down to grab his bag. Slipping the textbook back inside, he finally rises from her bed. He stretches out the kinks in his back and tries to drive out the soreness inflicted by her forced distance. Killian grabs his jacket before he grabs his boots, which made her laugh the first time she saw him do it - and that laughter had drawn such light-headedness that it nearly had him stepping out of the room and into the snow in just his socks.

He’s aware enough to actually go for his boots before he leaves her room this time, but it’s as Killian is pulling the first one on that something like a - it’s a sound he’s never heard Emma make and his heart instantly responds to it, the high-pitched, quickly cut note of distress.

He flips around to face her, boot fallen to the floor. Emma grips her binder so hard that she’s crushing the paper within, and her slight frown has caved to absolute surprise at herself, like she can’t stop this even though she wants to.

“Don’t go,” she says.

Pleads.

Emma doesn’t apologize as he removes his jacket and hangs it on the edge of her bed again. He drops his bag back down, but makes no moves to start back at his work again. Patiently, he waits, the thought of his suffering withering in the face of hers.

“I have this group project,” she says finally. “And it’s killing me. I’m so stressed because it’s a big part of my grade but it’s just...it’s just infuriating because my group spends 90% of the meeting time chatting instead of making any progress, and I just -”

She frowns.

“I hate that it isn’t the wasted effort that bothers me so much.”

Killian scoots closer to her, and she tries to look away, but when he peels her hands away from her binder and places it beside her on the bed, she faces him. She allows him to brush his fingers through her hair, and wait for her.

Sometimes waiting isn’t so awful when she wants him to.

“I hate that it just makes me feel like I shouldn’t even be there. Like I’m not even there. I feel invisible, and it would hurt less if I actually was. Gods, this is so stupid.”

She looks down at her hands. They tremble slightly and he takes both of them in his hands, caressing her knuckles gently.

“Love, I’m not unfamiliar with being the interloper. The outsider.”

She snorts at that, and meets his eyes, her head tilted in disbelief.

“You? I can’t see you not fitting in.”

Killian starts to detail exactly why, but closes his mouth around the words. She knows. She already knows, listened to him tell the tale while they gave up on pretending that either of them were doing their work and that he wasn’t more morose than he usually let himself reveal. She knows, but -

She smiles at her joke, _needing_ it, and goes on, “What was it? The accent? Can’t be. American girls _swoon_ for the accent.” Emma perks up as she adds, “So what was it? The hair? Because the mussed look is nowhere near unappealing.”

She reaches up and runs her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck to prove her point. She keeps her hand there, deep in consideration. The smile leaves her, but he doesn’t try to ease it back because her look is far from the distress that drew him back to her side. It’s the look she sometimes gives him that makes him want to push.

“Was it the charm? Was it the -” she pauses, soft breath, and a shyness to her words, or perhaps she’s just unaware of how she sounds with her fingers resting, warm on the back of his neck, and her gaze searching him - “kindness? The understanding?”

Killian can’t find a proper response, because gods does he want to push, but doing so could ruin this moment – and them – entirely. And if he pulls, he can’t be certain it’ll ever happen again, if Emma will look at him so openly, all of her bared to his gaze with no walls to shelter her.

He swallows down the pang of shame when he settles into the middle that he’s always settled in with her.

“Actually, it was my inability to shut my stupid mouth.”

The softness goes from her expression, and his heart goes with it, her retort humored, “Mmm, yeah, I understand that one.”

Killian grins, but doesn’t quite feel as teasing when he replies, “Of course you do, I’m quoting verbatim.”

She shakes her head and pulls away from him, hand sliding down his back just for a touch before leaving him altogether. She slips her hand out of his to grab her binder again.

He moves, to give Emma her space so that she can resume her work. Plus, he definitely needs food and she definitely needs it. The move becomes less practical when she snaps up straight, and she makes that sound again. The unintentional admission of her pain.

Emma’s cheeks go red and her eyes flit away from him.

“I’m going to get us something to eat. And I need some sweats to sleep in because your room is too cold to go without, and yours don’t quite fit, Swan.”

Killian is two beats away from suggesting that he leave clothes here just for nights like this - although they’ve never had a night like this; he’s never heard that sound and he wishes he never had to hear it. He’s a heavy beat of his yearning heart away from pulling Emma close so she truly hears it when he tells her he’s not leaving, he’ll come back whenever she wants him to, always back to her, always -

Emma shakes her head, her eyes returning to him. Her smile is hesitant, guarded as she says, “You know what I want, and yeah, your fat ass would ruin my sweats.”

He chuckles away those beats of his heart, grins away the yearning, and slips away from her room and the wish that he hadn’t let the middle chase him away.

At least if he’d gone to the extremes, he’d know where he’s standing.

-

October 23rd comes easier than October 22nd because Emma smiles when she wakes up to him lying beside her. She rolls close and says, “I have a class in like 20 minutes,” but kisses him like she never wants to do anything else. She kisses him like she could miss the entirety of the semester lying beside him.

Hell, this is hell, true suffering to be so in love with her, but he’s patient, he can wait. He can stay here as long as she wants him to. He pulls her closer, kisses her until she draws back in a moan, and his kisses lead him lower.

He can kiss her forever.

He can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm making no promises on when the next chapter will be because...well, it's me...but i hope you enjoyed this one! (I LOVE PINING)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has pushed me over my 500k word goal for the year sooooo whooo! also, rating upped this chapter

There’s no party this year - at Killian’s insistence because it would most likely be nice, but they’re all far too busy and the workload is too massive for them to waste a night, and a day considering the hangovers that always follow their birthday parties.

He takes the hugs and birthday slaps upside the head, courtesy of David and Ruby who were just _looking_ for an excuse and both shamelessly unapologetic when he calls them out on it. He takes the texts from friends who can’t leave their rooms for fear that they’ll never go back to deal with the project and homework horrors awaiting them. He lets his brother tease him, ream him out, and advise him - all somehow in the same breath - about his inconsistent contact and that girl (“woman”) who is definitely the reason for said inconsistency.

“Funny, but I do work in between classes, and hour long conversations with you aren’t quite how I want to spend my limited free time,” Killian replies cheekily, and not at all offended.

No, he isn’t until Liam says, “No, you’d rather spend that time pining over a _woman_ who either still hasn’t figured out that you’re in love with her, even though you’re never subtle, or who is just ignoring your feelings because she doesn’t return them.”

Stiffly, Killian replies, “Right, then. I’ll speak to you another time,” and disconnects the call because he is never subtle, and even if Liam’s words are said out of a desire to protect him as he has since they were children, his heart can’t take that blow right now.

He feels more than a little bruised when he jogs up to Emma’s apartment sans any and all work because he is extremely busy, his workload is set to take him down, and he is desperately in need of an evening where he can push that aside. It’s selfish (and perhaps sad) that he relies on Emma for that, but his is a dependency that has been _three_ years in the making, and most days it is difficult to even imagine not having her in his life. Often, his imaginations are in direct opposition, visions of a life where she is irrevocably intertwined.

Knocking on her window because she’s less likely to ignore it than a knock on her door - bang the door all you want, but she isn’t coming out if you aren’t the delivery man, but if you bang hard enough to break the cheap window, your murder is unavoidable and inevitable.

Her floor is carpeted, which she hates because she’s 99.9% certain it hides all manner of unknown horrors beneath it - coincidentally the same percentage of horrors Lysol is supposed to kill - so Killian doesn’t hear if she approaches the door. It takes enough time that he considers knocking the window again, but finally the door swings open and -

Awestruck would be the proper term for it. He’d started to grin as she opened the door with a feeling he’s since forgotten, just as he’s forgotten his grin in favor some kind of softer parting of his lips like maybe he’d smile if had control enough to do anything but stare at her.

The only truly ‘dressed to impress’ outfits he’s seen Emma adorn are business wear for interviews. Of course, she looked beautiful in those outfits as she does in everything, including that messy bun that is more mess than bun, the awful hole-ridden flannel shirt that she refuses to part with, and her mismatched flip-flops because she’s too lazy to look for their matches.

But this is ‘dressed to make him want to undress her, a slow baring of all her lovely planes and curves.’ He’s never been gifted with this sight, Emma in a skin-hugging black dress, simply made for her and her alone - and that’s exactly how it feels to look upon her, a birthday gift that he could never have dreamed of. Imagined, yes, because he’s only human; yes, he fantasizes about Emma a healthy amount and he keeps himself in check (99.9% of the time.)

“Oh, Killian,” Emma says.

He frees himself from the tempting sight of her cleavage. Rather, she frees him with the flatness of the greeting. He can’t tell whether it’s disappointment or surprise that she’s trying to cover, but either way he feels rejected when she gives him that thin-lipped smile.

“You can come in,” she says and he does step inside despite the starting ache. It’s too cold to keep her door open, and he feels safer hearing whatever she needs to say where no one else will see.

She walks towards her bedroom, but turns as he shuts the door behind him. This smile is wide and genuine, and he gets a flicker of hope when she says, “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

He appraises her attire openly, starting from her ankles up to her eyes, lifting an eyebrow in silent question.

“I didn’t think you’d want to come over,” Emma says.

The lie hurts more than Liam’s words.

“No?”

She sighs.

“I’m going to a play tonight. With one of my drama study classmates, Walsh. I know you had that class with him last semester, right?”

She doesn’t wait for him to reply, which is good because he did have that class with him and his company was one he never particularly enjoyed. There was something off about him, and it made him uneasy.

Emma’s going on a date with him.

Killian prevents his jaw from locking with difficulty, and he digs his hands into his pockets so that he doesn’t curl them into fists.

“It’s required viewing. I would’ve turned it down otherwise, but this is the only night the professor had available that I didn’t have a class or an exam. He put up the money for it, so I had no valid reasons to say ‘No.’” She chuckles in an attempt at light humor. “Though it’s valid reasoning to me, your birthday, you know?”

She bites her lip and draws in on herself, as if he would attack her.

In a way, that hurts more than her spending his birthday on a date with Walsh.

“Yea, I know.” He combs his fingers through his hair, rocking back on his heels even though he doesn’t need to be as unsteady outside as he is inside. He works a smile onto his face and says, “Well, I should let you finish getting ready, then. I wouldn’t want you to be late.”

“Oh, Killian,” she says.

She sounds pitying, and as he’s had more than his unfair share of that this evening, he offers her another smile, and says, “Tell me about the play tomorrow, then. If I’m not dead from not having a reason not to work this evening, of course.”

Where he’d normally sneak a kiss or sneak his affection into his farewell, he merely smiles again and says, “Goodnight.”

She doesn’t say anything to keep him from leaving, and did he really think that he had more than his unfair share of heartache this evening? What a mistaken thought.

He isn’t certain how he makes it to his room because one moment he’s descending Emma’s apartment stairs and the next he’s unlocking the door to his first floor apartment.

He tries, certainly Killian _tries_ not to descend into self-loathing, doubt, and every other emotion inflicted on his heart.

Try being the operative word because he settles uncomfortably comfortable in those thoughts. Forget thoughts of push and pull because it’s clear that neither of those truly matter when he’s so insignificant in her life. On the logical level, he understands this lonely evening as an unavoidable one - graduating must come before a birthday celebration, and it was easy to acknowledge that for all their other friends, but him and Emma?

He doesn’t want to acknowledge that, but forget his desires because his hand’s been forced by Studies in Drama and Walsh, and Emma looked so gorgeous and he didn’t even get to tell her so. Which is bloody unfair because they’ve been together three years even if Emma’s remained wholly unaware of this -

Or she doesn’t return his feelings.

And Killian can’t be the one to tell her she’s gorgeous - won’t be in the coming years. Graduation is quite literally around the corner, and chances are her visions of the future don’t include him.

He looks at the time - he isn’t certain how long he’s wallowed in his thoughts, but he looks at the time and it is 10PM. He’s wasted the evening away and if he keeps trapped in this whirlpool of self-pity, he won’t make it to his class tomorrow.

Clearing away everything that he left out of place is a quick exercise that does nothing to dull his thoughts and shutting off the light doesn’t help either. He certainly made the attempt. No one can say that he didn’t.

Flopping down in bed, he shuts his eyes firmly and starts running through his work and class schedule for the week. It helps him sleep, to plan out how he’s going to make the most of his time without leaving him a zombified shell of his former self.

Somehow, it’s working when the banging starts. Awareness comes slow, but his body moves without his mind, and he stands before the front door before he realizes that someone is trying to knock it in.

“Bloody hell, will you stop?” he shouts through the door.

He’s annoyed enough that the danger of opening his door without knowing who is on the other side doesn’t occur to him as he swings it open and -

Stunned would be the word for it, and a host of other emotions that he has no way to categorize when Emma’s standing before him, dark coat slung over her shoulders but not obscuring that dress in the slightest. She looks just a bit wind-bitten and it’s combing through her hair, sending it swirling over her shoulders. Her nose is pinkened, and she’s rubbing her hands together, he realizes when he looks down.

He looks at her again, and she answers before he knows the question he means to ask, “The play was really, really good, and actually is going to be really helpful for the final, which I’m amazed by.” She lets out a shaky breath, “I cut out right after it finished because like, there’s only two-ish hours left of your birthday. Walsh wanted to stay out a little longer and get food or something, honestly I didn’t hear him really. I explained about your birthday, and he was sort of weird about it, but whatever, he drove me back.” She takes a deep breath and exclaims, “Fuck it wasn’t this cold when I left, and jesus fuck, Killian, will you let me in already?”

“Oh.”

He lets her in without the sense to be ashamed about his loss of sense. Well, _this_ loss of sense. That earlier wallowing, however, he feels ashamed enough of to linger at closing the door. He presses his hand against it for a moment, cursing himself.

“Idiot,” she says behind him. “You let valuable heat out.”

“Idiot, yeah,” he agrees as he turns.

She studies him with a slight frown at that, and he tries - no one can say he didn’t make the attempt - not to let his awful brooding show in his face, but she steps towards him, no pity this time as she slides her cold hand over his chest and up until she’s cupping the back of his head and he’s surging forward kissing her like he loves her, he loves her, _oh Killian, you idiot, you love her._

She’s gasping in between breaks of their lips, but he places his hands on her waist and doesn’t allow her retreat, chasing after her lips until she stops running, her cold nose warming against his and her hand’s grip echoing the tightness of his hands on her waist.

It’s only after he’s had his fill of her that he allows himself to breathe. This is the lie he starts to tell himself, but in reality, it’s only when he feels her wobble slightly that he detaches his lips from hers because to have his fill of her? Impossible.

She laughs, well, more akin to giggling as she holds his shoulder as leverage to pull off one heel, and then the other.

He’s grinning when she lifts her gaze back to him, shorter now that he’s going to have to lift her on her toes to kiss him, which he is preparing to do, as she very clearly sees because she bats his hands away.

“Yeah, I know, I’m your savior! Giving you your excuse to stay up,” she says.

She picks up her heels by their very thin straps and stomps towards his bedroom. He’s helpless but to follow, flicking off the hallway light as she turns his bedroom light on. She always moves through his room like she owns it, and he watches from the doorway as she digs through his closet, murmuring to herself - “No.” “No.” “No, ugh, where is it?”

A hanger snaps inside - “Not broken!” - And she pulls out a pair of his sweatpants, complaining all the way.

“Ugh, these are so fucking ugly.”

“Fugly, I believe is the term.”

She scoffs loudly, “I refuse to say that. Not because it’s stupid. It is stupid. But it doesn’t have the same oomph to describe just how horrible these are.”

She turns towards his bed, where he keeps his shoes stacked neatly at the foot of and she squeals in far too much excitement for finding a pair of her sneakers at the top of the stack.

It’s nothing to be excited about. Not as it is to hear her say, “I’m so glad I left these here. Now I won’t look insane wearing my heels and these ugly things back to my apartment. I need to leave an extra pair here, definitely. Also, burn these sweatpants.”

“You burn them, you replace them,” Killian says.

She fixes him with the most sarcastic of looks.

“Gladly,” she says.

He stares at her, and the tension shifts. Rather it grows from their easy back and forth to his silent outpouring of love.

“You’re amazing,” he says while trying not to sound the way he feels.

There is an attempt, at least, but perhaps not a necessary one in Emma’s case. If she doesn’t see it by now, this isn’t going to change anything.

Except, perhaps, how quickly he devolves into a pity party.

She shifts on the balls of her feet, leaning towards the bed, and says, “You seemed really upset that I couldn’t spend your birthday with you. Which is upsetting to me, like -”

She bites her lips nervously, and before she can say more, Killian cuts her off with a quick step. He isn’t certain he should answer the question in her admission right now, not because he doesn’t want to push, but because she’s here because she wanted to be and just being her choice is more than he can fathom.

He stands over her, and says, “Well, that’s what happens when your best friend abandons you on your birthday.”

Eyes widening, Emma asks, “I’m your best friend?”

“Of course.”

Her stare lasts five slow beats of his heart, and then, she shakes her head, and pushes him back to walk towards his bed.

“You were just afraid you’d miss out on birthday sex.”

Softly, he sighs, because of the confirmation that he made the right choice in not answering that question. She’s sliding over deeper feelings with an Emma-like ease, and they’re back in her safe territory.

His heart doesn’t protest her departure from that tension, too happy to see her. He grins easily and comes up behind her, sliding his hands down from her shoulders to cup her slender waist. Nuzzling her hair aside so he can get at her ear, he places a kiss against that spot that always makes her shiver before replying, “Well, it is fantastic.”

“For you,” she snorts.

He freezes, and truly, his Swan shouldn’t goad him today, not in that dress, not here, not here. He latches onto her neck and the kisses her lays there, the bruises he sucks into her skin are not just an act of possessiveness. Truthfully, that’s always a motivation for his kisses, seeing him branded on her skin and hoping to be so branded on her heart. But they also make her shiver so deliciously, unconsciously pushing until her body is molded against him so he can deliberately keep her close while he rocks his growing erection against her, drawing heat into his belly - and hers. She exhales in a breath so fast and deep that her entire belly drags in, tense, oh so tense and then she breathes in like she forgot how to do so and is carefully trying to keep herself from passing out.

“For you, too?” he asks.

She makes a noise of protest, so he spins her - she gasps when he pulls her close, his cock now straining and snug between them and against the firm, smooth plane of her belly.

“No matter,” he says with casual disregard for her second attempt at denial. Grinding up, only serving to make him stiffen more and Emma’s eyes shut, he adds, “Your words don’t have much weight when you can barely get them out, now do they?”

Before she can verbalize her protest, he drags his hands down to cup her ass, squeezing once, twice, not nearly enough attention but the only amount he can give before he lifts her up. She throws up her legs - a difficulty in her dress - and digs her fingers into his shoulder blades to solidify her grip. It’s unnecessary because he deposits her on the bed right after.

Her hair splays a golden halo around her head, her eyes utterly hazed with arousal, lips parting in the most inviting of ways. Killian drops a chaste kiss on them - well, four of them, but chaste still because it’s not her lips that he wants to kiss.

Well -

He smirks and bunches the skirt of her dress in his fists, dragging it up and over her hips so he has access to her heated core. Not that he immediately searches it out, instead bending her knees until her feet are flat with the bed, and it’s easy for him to settle between the cradle of them, passing kisses from her delicate ankles, up her muscled calves and the hard and yet sensitive bend of her knee. She makes a soft noise, so he treads that same path on her other leg, this time massaging her thigh as he does, his kisses just that touch harder until the noise she makes is soft and broken, shuddered out in between breaths.

Her dress is a bit in the way so he can’t see her face. It isn’t the same if he can’t see her words proven false. He pushes her up the bed so he has a better position and even easier access.

“Up,” he says, crooking a finger.

She obeys, lifting up on her elbows, and he bloody loves the way she gives in to him when he has her like this. She must be soaked to be so compliant, desperate and oh so giving because he’s going to give her what she needs.

“Good girl,” he murmurs.

She’s flushed, so beautifully painted in shades of red and pink, droplets of moisture making her glow, brighter in the valley of her breasts.

“Unzip.”

Again she obeys, sitting up momentarily so she can reach the zip at her back, the low cut making it easy for her to get it down. She goes above and beyond this time, slipping her arms free of the dress and opening herself to his hungry gaze, settling into her former position so he can settle himself between her thighs again.

He massages her thigh, watching her chest lift and fall. The color’s spreading fast on her skin, but the flushed pink is too pale to match the deep rose of her nipples, already risen into taut buds even though he hasn’t paid them the attention he so often gives.

“You are so eager to please,” he murmurs. Her lashes flutter with his words, soft pants escaping her, and he continues, “And, love, you are so very pleasing.”

“To the eye.”

He gazes at her, heated and sharing that heat with her, daring her to look away as he continues to massage her with one hand, the other rising up to the lace of her underwear, pulling until she follows and together, they work her leg free of them.

“To the touch,” he says, tickling a path from the outside of her thighs, to the warmer skin between. She lets her legs fall open, so pleasing, and gives him free rein to finally run his fingers through her soft, barely there curls, over her sensitive bud with the lightest pressure, over the seam of her lips, collecting the warm liquid gathered there, and spreading.

Drawing his finger to his mouth, he says, “To the taste,” before licking her off his finger - so sweet, so pleasing. He groans and the sound draws out a whimper in her. She’s met his challenge, her eyes still locked on him even though her blinks are lasting longer.

“Oh, to the taste,” he says and surges forward.

He has her legs quickly thrown over his shoulders and his nose pressed into her curls, breathing hard over the slick flesh while her hand is already reaching for a grip in his hair.

He licks along her outer lips first, torture for them both because there’s only a hint of her taste there. The torture doesn’t last long because he works his way inward, paying equal attention to every soft fold until he reaches the center, her clit pressed against his tongue and her hot core pushing against him, so eager to please.

“ _Please, please, Killian, please._ ”

“Shh, shhh,” he murmurs into her wetness, and it doesn’t help to quell her pleas, just making her arch, her grip tightening in his hair, but trembling with her desire to let him give her what she needs, even if he leaves her like this for too long.

He doesn’t have that cruelty in him, to draw out her torment, not when she’s offered herself to him, unwrapped herself like a present, revealed the treasure within.

Sometimes it’s difficult to please her - she’s not there, he’s not there, and they’re both just too inebriated from liquor or lack of sleep for actual effort - but he licks and laves, sucks and nibbles, drives his tongue into her at the same pace that he grinds his cock into the bed, desperate for friction, desperate for her.

He kisses everywhere that he can, with his lips, with the tip of his tongue, and the light graze of his teeth and her hand suddenly releases him. He casts his eyes from her flesh to her face and she’s utterly wrecked, her lip wrenched between her teeth, holding back the sweet sounds of her break.

“None of that,” he says.

Her eyes fly open, and it’s only when she releases her lip that he returns to offering his sincerest gratitude for her gift, for her, here, _here_ with him. He keeps his eyes on her this time, memory guiding his tongue and lips. He finds that sweet spot beneath the hood of her clit and he licks soft then hard then - she falls, utterly broken and breaking whatever control that he’s been wielding over his own desperate need.

Pushing his pants and boxers down just enough not to impede him, he watches her shudder through her orgasm, not bothering to work her down from it because she’s going to fall again soon enough. Her tight channel pulses so wonderfully when he guides his cock into her, thrusting deep and hard, feeling her stretch to accustom herself properly so when he draws out, back in, out, and back in, it’s all pleasure written across her features, heard in her gasps, his name falling from her lips and hers - he can’t say it because she’ll look at him like her name on his lips is the only thing she ever wanted and ever wants to hear. He can’t lose himself that soon, though he _will_ lose himself soon. He’s worked himself up too much, and she looks so debauched with that gorgeous dress a mess at her hips and half opened to reveal her glorious, bouncing breasts.

He wants to feel them so he slides downwards, changing the angle of his thrusts but not the force of them. With his chest pressed to hers, he can pin her more securely and her lips, yes, he wants to kiss them, so he does, chaste at first only because he misses them and then without a hint of restraint, trying to steal her every breath, perhaps his own in his desperate, uncontrollable need. She returns his fervor, but where he could kiss her further, she drives up to meet him, forcing him to draw back, heat running up and down and over and back, inside and out, and ready to take him.

As she’s taking him, so willingly, so bloody eager, and he says for the second time that night, a different tone entirely, rough and hoarse, but no less overwhelmed and no less sincere.

“You’re amazing.”

She keens, still so ready to give. He pushes deeper, and at times he isn’t certain that it feels as good for her as it does him, but she’s crying out and trembling uncontrollably, and he seeks that sound, that sensation - it’s so close to catching her, and he begs, “Open your eyes, love. Look at me.”

She does, and it catches him -

“Emma.”

It catches him, the pure gratitude in her eyes before she follows him into the fall. He sees black - and his muscles are straining too much to hold him up any longer. He slides out of her before the pleasure ends, and lifts over her so that he can fall to the bed.

It takes hours for them to catch their breaths, for them to shift and open their eyes to look at one another. Emma’s open first, and he doesn’t understand the look, just knows that he falls in love with it instantly.

“Like I said,” he says. “It’s pretty fantastic for you, too.”

Soft eyes and softer voice, she says, “Yeah.”

There really isn’t much to be said afterwards - not that he wants to say right now, which is odd because he always wants to say it, but he falls asleep before he can analyze why.

-

She misses her first class - and she’s too sex-lazy and limp limbed even hours later for her to truly consider attempting her second class.

Brushing her fingers over his forehead, down to his cheek, she shrugs. It’s cold outside, and here, here she is warm. She brushes her fingers over his lips, feeling his breath gust over them. Here, she is warm.

She always is.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s instantaneous sunburn hot out, so Emma is more than happy to retreat to the shade of the umbrella shrouded table on the patio of the Beach Buffet.

She opted to wear her swimsuit beneath her long halter cover up, an excellent idea now that it seems unlikely they’ll be heading to the water any time soon. Mary Margaret did not make the same decision so she glares when Killian openly ogles her white bikini - in a friendly way, of course. David would murder him if the look was born out of more than a desire to annoy Mary Margaret, but only after Mary Margaret had already murdered Killian.

Mary Margaret straightens and pushes her chair back for a strangling no doubt, but Mulan places a hand on her shoulder, reseating Mary Margaret and stealing her attention from Killian’s smirking form.

“We should head to the water before we eat, _but_ -”

She nods at Emma, her cue.

“I’ll be right back,” she says.

She jogs into the buffet, thanking all the gods that it’s shaded because even still the stone is warm beneath her bare feet, and her soles would be blistered from just that short walk without the shade. It only takes her a few minutes to get the small cake from the kitchen’s freezer, and another quick jog to return to the table.

“Ta-da!” she says excitedly, placing the cake down before Mary Margaret.

“Happy Birthday,” Killian says.

He’s leaning up against the railing so Emma opts to lean there with him. He smiles at her briefly - or maybe a little longer than brief because he’s still smiling at her when Emma slides up next to him and focuses her attention on Mary Margaret as she opens the cake container.

“Oh my god!” Mary Margaret squeals.

Mulan laughs and says, “I know. That we managed this is a feat beyond understanding.”

“Truly since you and David pissed off the owner at the Misthaven Bakery and got all of us thrown out and banned,” Killian adds.

Mary Margaret huffs, “Blaming us for her own misspelling on Will’s cake was ridiculous. Regina can keep her stupid pastries.”

“That she can, and does,” Mulan says. “I did try because she was closer, but she has our pictures on the Wall of the Banned, and not attractive pictures either.”

Emma groans at the memory of her picture. She was captured mid-laughter, and not just a chuckle but a hysterical burst of giggles and her half-open mouth and closed eyes are not the image she’d like to have on anyone’s wall - or seen at all. But at least Killian’s was right next to hers, the other half to the awful picture pouting in the ugliest top-hat known to man, courtesy of Jefferson and too much rum to worry about a little thing like fashion.

Emma pushes past the memory and says, “Anyway, we found a better bakery, right next to Ingrid’s shop, actually, and they were more than happy to emblazon your Disney selves on the cake.”

They did it so well, too, because the Snow White even sort of looks like Mary Margaret and her Prince Charming has David’s exact shade of blonde.

It’s really well done, actually, with the way Prince Charming looks at Snow White, not that there are any detailed expressions or anything, but you only have to know David and Mary Margaret to know what look the iced couple is giving each other. It’s the look of Happily Ever After. The look of beyond today, beyond their upcoming senior year, just _beyond_.

Emma needs to think about beyond a bit more than she has, but every time she thinks past what she wants to do, goes beyond just her career and into the ‘How do you want to spend the rest of your life?’ her stomach starts to clench and her head gets fuzzy, and everything inside her screams, _Run, run, run!_ After obeying that voice for so long, it’s easy to do so now as well.

Well, no, not really right in this exact moment because she’s looking at that cake and it’s making her sweat the way the heat hasn’t.

Killian slides his hand over her neck to the tie of her halter knotted at the back. She can tell without looking at him that he’s looking at her breasts beneath the cover up because he’s humming appreciatively.

She knows the sight he’s eager for, and to be honest, she did wear the bikini because he’d be eager for the revealed skin and the skin unrevealed. He always is, and again, being honest, so is she because they tend to think along the same lines and the amount of skin she’s showing generally corresponds to the amount of skin he’s showing. Truly, she was looking forward to him taking off the tee he’s in right now.

At the moment, however, lust doesn’t guide her thoughts even when his fingers stop trying to loosen the knot and glide over shoulder blades instead before following the length of her spine down to her butt. She feels light, actually, and she smiles without a reason that she can pinpoint. Leans into him because it’s just so nice to do that.

“I love you all,” Mary Margaret says, and she’s still looking at the cake, but her bottom lip is trembling like she might cry.

“I really love you so much, I do, but -”

“But you wish David was here,” Killian finishes for her.

Mulan murmurs, “Of course,” as Emma adds, “Obviously.”

Protesting, Mary Margaret says, “I can be separated from him,” to the disbelief of all of them. She pouts, insisting, “Okay, I know all evidence points to the contrary, but I _can_ be separated from him. It’s just different today because it’s my birthday, and you know, one year older, one more birthday to look forward to, and it’s just better when you have someone to look forward to it with.”

Emma freezes as Killian’s hand glides up to rest on the small of her back, rubbing in circles. It hits her like a freeze ray, locking her in place, in Mary Margaret’s place because Emma feels the same. She never imagined that she would, but she’s tried to ignore it and convince herself that it’s nothing that actually matters, just a little thing - just a day like any other - and even with those protests, she’s so happy to have spent her birthdays with Killian. It is a day like any other, but it’s also _her_ day, and he’s made them all so much better than they would be. Granted it’s only been two birthdays that she’s spent with him but they feel innumerable - like the time she’s spent with him can be counted to three years, going on four, but it feels endless in a way.

Like one more birthday to look forward to.

Her chest is tight, and her breath comes out shuddered when she exhales. Emma tries to muffle the sound. She just doesn’t know how, not in any way that _she_ can, but any and all breaths can be covered with this -

She turns into him and grabs Killian by the neck of his shirt, their mouths crashing, crashing, and then its waves meeting the beach, natural, constant, a kiss that is as easy as it’s always been. She can’t breathe with their mouths so fused, and she doesn’t have to hear that shudder in her breath. No longer does she even feel that tightness in her chest the longer they find each other, familiar touches, memorized licks and nipping of teeth, and that soft moan, that one she drags out when tugs with her teeth and soothes with her tongue.

Emma feels light again, feels like smiling without a reason she can explain.

A voice - “Is this really fair? Making out with each other when I really want to be making out with David?”

A response - “I don’t think fairness has anything to do with it.”

Emma hears but she doesn’t acknowledge, too intent on losing herself with him, hanging onto that lightness, hanging on so tight, so tight -

Killian draws back, and where Emma’s smiling, his brow is dipped in a frown, in - is that concern of all the expressions?

“That was…” - He reaches up to his neck and oh god, he’s nervous, and a weight drops in her belly, her smile following - “That was rather unexpected,” he says with a small smile of surprise, and that concern shifted into confusion but no less embarrassing, discomfiting.

She smiles again, reason easy to identify – run and hide, _hide_ – and says, “Yeah, sorry, it’s probably the heat.” Pulling away from him and the railing, she heads towards the table and plops down next to Mulan. “Good thing this is an ice cream cake, right?” she addresses Killian, but doesn’t wait for his reply before she turns to Mulan and Mary Margaret.

“Are you going to eat Prince Charming or should I?”

“I don’t even know what to think of that,” Mary Margaret says.

Mulan nods. “Yeah, you should probably be worried.”

Emma chokes, her protest not a protest but an argument irrefutable, “Or not because this isn’t Game of Thrones and I’m not interested in my brother.”

“Self-assigned brother,” Mulan reminds them.

“Still a brother.”

The chair gets dragged out beside her and she turns to Killian who winks before joining the conversation, and he ends up eating Prince Charming, Mulan gets Snow White, and she and Mary Margaret split the flowers at the bottom, roses for her, buttercups for Emma.

When she strips herself of her halter, and runs out towards the sea, Killian meets her as always, shirt gone and they hit the water at the same time, meet under it and break the surface holding onto each other for support.

Emma laughs before kicking away, finding Mary Margaret tossing aside seaweed and Mulan letting the current take her where it will.

A successful day all in all. A birthday well spent with the _one_ -

With people you love.


	6. Chapter 6

He clears his throat for the second time. Emma pauses finally, although she takes a moment to actually acknowledge him. Getting out of that headspace takes some time, he knows, so he waits.

Finally, she pushes her hair back out of her eyes and frowns at him over the easel. Killian isn’t disheartened by the look. He smiles at her, and with a tired roll of her eyes, slowly - _slowly_ \- she smiles back.

“Are you coming out with us tonight?” he mouths at her.

She nods her head, thinks better of that, bites her lip and shakes it negatively. Thinks better of _that_ , then slowly nods again.

Emma doesn’t usually battle over decisions so visibly, usually so certain of what she wants. Food, movies, what assignment she’s going to hit first and what she’s going to be doing Tuesday at 5PM (that is, when asked, she’d answered, “Editing a paper, why?”) She’s always certain - and any claims to the contrary are quieted when she grabs his hand and leads him wherever she seems to want, the last place being here so she can paint out her frustrations, having given up exercise because of the gym’s early closing and assignments because that’d only be adding to her frustration.

Relaxation, that’s what she needs, and what better way to relax than celebrating Will getting the job offer of his dreams? At least this time Will’s claim that the drinks are on him will actually prove to be true.

Killian hopes.

“Perfect,” he mouths and nods his head that she can go back to her painting.

She doesn’t, leaving the painting where it is for someone else to finish - this collaborative art project usually doesn’t produce masterpieces, but that isn’t the point.

He opens his mouth to apologize once she leaves the self-imposed shared silence of the studio, but she just says, “Let’s grab some coffee,” not a question or a suggestion, but a decision already made.

Her indecision can almost be swept aside by it, but his “Where do you want to go?” is met with the same lip bite, and a questioning uptick to her, “Wherever you want.”

Killian is happy to take the decision out of her hands, but he watches for it again - the indecision that she doesn’t even try to hide.

He leaves Emma for his shift and doesn’t see her until he gets to the bar, an hour late because of traffic, but still right on time.

Will pulls away from Emma and Belle so he can drunkenly embrace and paw - there is definitely some (and too much) pawing - at Killian until his congratulations turns into a threat. After, Killian finds himself watching Emma - no surprise to anyone at all, not even her because she meets his eyes with that same frown as before. He smiles at her, but doesn’t see if she returns it, distracted by David and Mary Margaret’s heated discussion on who is the worst at keeping secrets.

David argues that it’s Mary Margaret because she’s a terrible liar and always thinks she’s helping by telling the truth, despite the fallout previous truth-telling has wrought her. Mary Margaret argues that it’s David because he’s keeping secrets to begin with.

“Isn’t that the whole point of being in a relationship? Being able to share everything with your partner?”

“ _Do you really want to know what I was doing last Friday_?”

“Yes!”

With a pleading look, Killian’s tagged in to steer the conversation away from David puking his guts out after swallowing down his food too fast to cover his accidental admission about Mary Margaret’s recent lingerie purchase.

He finds success in spinning a tale of Liam’s oversharing ex. It isn’t exactly a lie, but not completely the truth either because Liam goaded his ex into oversharing as he’s wont to do at the prospect of being wrong. As Killian extricates himself from them, he looks about to a distinct lack of Emma’s presence.

As expected.

The side door’s open to let in some desperately needed clean, crisp fall air, as much as there is of it, and Killian (decisively) walks to that exit, unsurprised when he finds Emma staring off into the quiet distance. The streets are usually devoid of life this time on a Wednesday night. The bar is only open because they begged and pleaded with the owner to extend closing hours. Merlin can be a bit of a prick, telling them one thing and then the next another, but this time his answer was clear and he stuck to it even with the early opening hours of his adjoining shop.

“The party’s inside,” Killian says.

He startles her out of her reverie, her head snapping in his direction, but the look she gives him once the surprise fades away isn’t unsuspecting. She shakes her head the tiniest amount like she should’ve known that it would be him.

Emma should know. By now she should know.

Killian suspects that she does because lately her affections have gone beyond friendly. Her kiss at Mary Margaret’s disappointingly small birthday party was a shock, but the second one was only a surprise, and now it’s still unexpected but only in that he isn’t sure when it’s going to happen.

But it’ll happen because every time she does it she looks at him like he should know.

Killian knows.

“It is,” she says pointedly, nodding towards the door he just came through.

She has her arms wrapped around her chest. There’s still a sticky heat to the air despite it being late October, and she can’t possibly be cold, but she tightens her self-embrace when he steps closer. Emma even looks away, but Killian’s undaunted - or only daunted up until the moment that he presses a hand to her wrist and she moves with him, slipping her hand in his as he reaches for hers.

“Don’t drag me back there,” Emma moans - a faintly distressed note to it that he remembers all too well - when he starts to pull.

“Somewhere else?”

She nods, breathes out hastily, “Yeah, sure. Somewhere else.”

He pulls lightly until she settles into step with him. He lets his hand go slack in hers, but when she keeps her grasp, he tightens his hold again.

There aren’t very many places to go. Killian glances at Emma. She’s biting at her lip, a small furrow in her brow, so he crosses said places off his list and settles on a walk.

“Any thoughts you’d like to share?” he probes after he finds a well-tread road and follows the dim street lamps around the roundabout.

“Not really worth it,” Emma replies quietly.

“Let me be the judge of that?” he offers.

She shakes her head and says, “This is fine. This is enough, really.”

He sighs. As much as he’d rather soothe the wrinkle from her brow, he trusts that Emma isn’t lying. He doesn’t have her superpower to tell when someone is, but he has the weight of her hand in his, not letting go.

And when she squeezes lightly, Killian squeezes back.

-

It occurs to her, when she wakes up with his head in her lap that she’s panicking. Slumped a little uncomfortably on his couch, and him drooling on her thigh, Emma panics - but quietly because she doesn’t want him to hear.

She slips out from under him the same way, exchanging her thigh for one of the cushions. Emma grabs her wallet and her keys and tiptoes to the door, pushing her feet into her boots because they don’t squeak like the sneakers she set there the day he moved in, locking the door behind her with the only extra key.

If she could walk to the cafe in a daze, she’d love to do that, but instead her thoughts race at a speed that she can keep up with no matter how she slows her steps and takes fifteen more minutes to get there from his apartment than it takes on a day when she’s not -

Panicking.

Yesterday was her birthday, and she didn’t even have to think about being alone because Killian found her at ten in the morning, lost her to Ruby and Mulan at noon, but found her again a little after two, just in time to sit in with her while she painted her troubles away.

Only for those troubles to draw her out of the blank space and back into the reality of the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles and she isn’t sure where to look, actually, because his whole expression lights up and everywhere she looks, it’s blinding with the energy he always seems to have breaking free - waggled eyebrows and hand shoved into his pockets to still its movements only to slip out so it’s easy for her to reach out, easy for him to take hold of, all that energy focused on the rhythmic squeeze, the unconscious caress of his thumb.

It was her birthday, and she wasn’t alone, but it will be her birthday a year from yesterday and there’s nothing keeping his hand always in reach of hers. No hallowed halls rooting him to her side. No promise of a shared future - he has job offers all over the country, and some outside of the country, and she has some too, but only three of them are in the same city, only two within easy driving distance of each other. She knows because her troubles - the ones that she couldn’t avoid with the blank space - kept her up late and had her google mapping them out.

She knows because she needed to know and he -

He doesn’t.

It’s been more than selfish for a while now. She’s been more than selfish. Lying, even, to pretend what she was taking couldn’t hurt.

But it hurts. It really hurts.

Feels like the sudden onset cold after the warmth of last night is a metaphor from Mother Nature, and the full cafe with no one she knows even in passing is some kind of premonition.

She looks at her phone, only to catch the time and not the texts from friends, the emails in her professional inbox, her university one, and the personal one that she only uses for her twitter and goodreads account. She looks at her phone to realize that she’s missed one class and is halfway through missing the only other one she has today.

Emma places her phone back in her pocket and stares at the swirls in the tabletop, knowing that she isn’t going to find blankness in the patterns, and desperately wishing to know whether she even wants to.

“Hey.”

Someone taps on her shoulder and she turns to look at them, frowning because she doesn’t recognize the girl, sophomore age from what Emma can tell. Usually unfamiliar students talking to her means some kind of recruitment, which she isn’t interested in entertaining today.

“You should take this,” the girl says.

Emma looks at the plastic container in her hands as the girl offers it to her. It’s a cupcake, blue icing and topped with hard white sugar in the shape of a star.

She frowns, this time in absolute confusion.

The girl extends the cupcake closer and says, “You look like you need it more than me.”

She smiles and that’s what gets Emma to take the cupcake and say, more like whisper, “Thanks,” and watch as the girl walks off. There’s a library on the second level, and Emma hurries up there because she feels like she might cry. There’s a little alcove here, and thank gods it isn’t an exam week because it’s empty so she can sink down on the floor without anyone seeing her eyes water as she stares at the cupcake. It’s homemade - the kitchens in this cafe allow for students to cook and bake certain times of the week. Thursday must be one of those days.

Emma’s phone vibrates with an incoming text, and instinct tells her not to look, but instinct’s put her where she is right now so she fights it and looks at her phone.

It’s Mary Margaret and it is only 1:15 so that means she’s still in the class that Emma’s supposed to be in, the one that Mary Margaret would never slack off in, and turns her phone off entirely for.

**1:15: Do you need to talk?**

Emma sets the cupcake down to reply, shuts up her instincts again when she writes off, “I don’t know how to tell him?”

Because Mary Margaret knows. Of course, she knows.

Emma does, too.

**1:17: The way only you can tell him. The way he’ll understand.**

She sets the phone down again. She cracks open the plastic container - it’s loud; she doesn’t care - and takes out the cupcake. Blue icing smears her fingers, but she peels the liner off before she sneaks a taste. Rather, she takes a bite. The icing melts on her tongue, the cake is soft, and it’s so good. It tastes like how she imagined all birthday cakes should taste before being introduced to the wonders of cake that isn’t yellow, icing that isn’t vanilla and chocolate, and cakes that would never be hers.

But this one _is_ , given to her because she looked like she needed it.

Emma did, but she needs a little more than that. She finishes the cupcake, licks the last of the icing off her fingers, and leaves to wash her hands and drop the container in the first can that she sees - a librarian eyes her in admonishment; she doesn’t care.

This time, it takes her five less minutes to reach his apartment than usual. The lingering outside of his door consumes those gained five minutes, but that’s all it takes because she raps the door a few times before unlocking it and stepping inside.

“Oi,” Killian says, stepping out of his bathroom, obviously mid-getting ready for a shower because his shirt and belt are gone and his jeans are hanging low on his hips. He crosses over to her and she walks away from the door, stepping into the living room so he’s forced to follow and place himself in between her and an easy exit.

“Didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” he says, grinning when her eyes track up his form to his face.

He looks ready to speak, and she isn’t ready at all.

“Yesterday was my birthday,” Emma exclaims before she can talk herself out of the rush of confession.

If she was expecting any smart remarks, a fist pump and an exclaimed, “I knew you weren’t a summer baby!” or a lifted brow and a drawled, “Were you expecting a present this year?” Emma would be sorely disappointed.

She wasn’t expecting that, though, and Killian merely stares, as if waiting for her to continue. As it is, she just feels a little woozy, lightheaded even; she’s running a race with her head and her heart and it’s too close for her to be sure who’s going to win; they’re neck and neck.

She swallows against instinct, licking her lip - she can still taste icing.

“I wanted” - she stumbles and sighs, apologetic as she looks at him - “to say thank you for spending it with me.”

She catches herself after that, realizes she’s not letting either her head or her heart win if she doesn’t just say it. Because her head knows that she needs to address this before it turns into one of those things that she pretends don’t matter (and never mattered; it’s just a day, after all), and her heart wants (what it wants, _wants_ ) him to know.

“I wanted this to be easier,” she jokes, not very lightly.

He shifts at that - where his look was considering, it softens, something like wonder in the expression - and he steps towards her. Killian drops his hand towards hers, brushing his knuckles against hers, and it’s the smallest of touches, but it warms her all over.

“Thank you for not letting me spend it alone. This time. Last time -” she sighs “- That first time, you didn’t know, and I didn’t want you to because I didn’t expect that it’d be more than a one-time thing. I didn’t think I’d end up spending every birthday since then with you and I really didn’t think I’d want to. I don’t _want_ things like that because it never works out, it never -”

He starts to reach for her, and Emma raises a hand, not really defensive, she just needs to get this out, and she doesn’t give herself a chance to clear the haze from her vision, just says, “I _really_ don’t want to spend another birthday without you.”

She drops her hand after and he moves in faster than she can react - or all she does _is_ react, falling easily into his embrace, meeting his lips when they press down on hers. It’s fast at first - or her heart is just pounding too rapidly in her chest, and then everything slows.

“Really?” he breathes against her.

“Really, really,” she assures him, a little laugh escaping her.

Maybe she actually does cry this time. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to know. Not that, at least. She draws back, enough that she can see him fully and he can see her, because she just wants to know -

“You know I love you, right?”

She _needs_ to know.

“I always have.”

He tilts his head down to kiss her and she draws a little higher on her toes, and as she closes her eyes, she says, “No, you haven’t.”

He kisses her twice, soft but warmth lingering behind, before he says, “Well, I suspected!”

She kisses him, laughing hard so that it isn’t a good kiss at all. Sloppy in a bad way, bruising, even.

“No, you didn’t,” she insists.

Killian sets her back down on her feet and peers down at her.

“Are you calling me an idiot, Swan?”

His tone catches her, so light, so joking, so easy with this thing that never felt like it could be easy.

“No” - she knows she’s crying this time - “Just me.”

“Oh, that’s good. For a moment there, I thought you were insulting me, which isn’t a fair thing to do after you confess you love someone. How would you feel if I told you I loved you, always have and always will, and then called you a fool for not knowing?”

He trails off on a heavier question than his words ask.

She starts to answer the lighter question, “I’d say that it doesn’t make sense because I knew. You’re not subtle.”

The breath in between is long and quiet. There are no unspoken words to fill the silence. No words pass between them. She’s simply staring at him, and he at her.

“You love me,” she answers the other.

This breath in between is shorter, but no less silent.

“Yeah, I do love you. Always have and always will.”

The breaths after that come when she settles back on her heels, holding onto his shoulders for support while she presses her face into his chest. The ones that follow are even quieter. Unnoticeable because she’s saying too much for the silence to press, for it to take hold - and he’s saying too much for it to even matter if it’s there at all.


	7. Chapter 7

The “Happy Birthday” he gets is said as such an afterthought that Killian finally takes offense.

It wasn’t so awful when he and Emma entered Merlin’s to a chorus of “Killian and Emma sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Emma’s groan made looking at the glittering silver letters of “Happy Actual Couple Day!” tolerable enough. It helped that the red shading her cheeks was the same color that painted her skin this morning when she woke him to breakfast in bed before presenting him with an actual breakfast, courtesy of the diner down the street.

But this he won’t stand for, the way David says “Happy Birthday,” the too-hard slap to Killian’s back betraying that same nervousness he had when he announced his proposal plans to Killian and Mulan, the only ones he could trust not to tell Mary Margaret - Mulan and Killian being the ones used to deliberately smothering their feelings.

As much as he starts to protest, he has no shot of stopping David’s trajectory when Emma takes that moment to return to his side. She searches for his hand to grab onto, and the momentary distraction of her touch rendering him unable to move until David drops down to his knee - “Couldn’t wait until we were somewhere cleaner?” he mutters - and presents Mary Margaret with the ring.

“He isn’t,” Emma says.

“Yeah, he is.”

“Sorry -”

Mary Margaret says “Yes,” of course she does, and the rest of Emma’s apology is drowned out by the chorus of squeals and whistling and “OH MY GOD!!!!”

She pats him on the back and they share a look - Emma’s an apology, Killian’s resigned - before slipping away from him to offer her congratulations as well. They’re surrounded by well-wishers, excited and ecstatic friends, but David manages to pull away to offer Killian a sheepish smile.

“I thought a private proposal would work better, but I’ve been carrying around her ring for so long, and it was burning a hole in my pocket and I just -”

“Decided to completely overshadow my birthday?”

David nods decisively, no longer apologetic at all.

“Yes.”

His looks becomes sly, a secretive smile that’s out of place because guile isn’t exactly one of David’s talents and not one he’ll likely be cultivating any time soon. He leans close to Killian and says, “I won’t blame you if you decide payback is in order.”

Killian knows his long pause is revealing enough, but still he adopts a look of blank misunderstanding as he replies, “Oh? Rest assured when I decide on said payback, I’ll let you know.”

“You already know the kind of payback I was implying, but I’ll let you off this time,” David says.

He claps Killian on the back, his pointed gaze drawing Killian’s eye to Mary Margaret, Ruby and Emma. Mary Margaret’s stopped crying, probably due to the way Ruby’s pulled her hand out for inspection of her ring. Killian can’t see Ruby’s face or hear her words, but he sees Emma’s responding expression as she looks at the ring and nods, smiling softly. Mary Margaret’s gaze snaps to Emma and she tugs her hand out of Ruby’s grip to engulf Emma in a hug.

Emma’s laughter reaches them over the rest of the din, and Killian smiles as he always does, even when that laughter is at his own expense. Mary Margaret moves aside, and Emma glances his way to find him and David staring. She shakes her head in judgement, but as she looks away, the pink starts creeping into her cheeks.

“But I don’t think that’ll last long. Do you?”

Before Killian can muster up a response, David slides away and doesn’t look back so he can’t see Killian frown at his retreating form. Will notices and throws a questioning glance over David’s shoulder. Killian just shrugs and mouths, “I need a drink.” It makes Will grin and turn away, question sufficiently answered.

Another hand slides over his back, the touch lighter, softer - delicate, even, and Killian shifts as she does so that he can look at Emma properly while she caresses the back of his neck, fingers playing in his hair.

“That came at a good time,” Emma says.

“Really?”

Killian’s voice strains with offense, higher pitched than is necessary, but that proposal was completely unnecessary, completely -

“Yeah. I couldn’t endure another minute of ‘Told you so!’” She frowns slightly, hand stilling in his hair. “No one told me.”

“Did they not?” Killian presses lightly.

She ducks her head, mouth twisting up in thought. He slides his hand over her waist and squeezes her softly. At that, she lifts her head again.

“Not really? I think they meant to, but I have that way of stopping them before they really start.”

“Scary,” Killian says with a shudder.

“Scared,” Emma corrects.

She frowns apologetically, but before he can tell her there isn’t a need for apologies, she hears him, her mouth twisting up in a smile.

“But I’m not scared anymore. I promise.”

“Do you” - He cuts himself off abruptly. His question. His thoughts, entirely. Clearing his throat, he repeats only, “Do you?”

Emma nods. She pulls her hand away from his neck and raises it, fist curled up with her pinky outstretched.

“Pinky promise.”

He laughs and offers his own hand, crooking his pinky around hers.

“That’s the only vow I could ask for,” Killian says.

Emma holds his grip for another beat before she releases him and stretches on her toes to press her forehead to his. She stops just at their noses touching, stilling at the approach to a kiss.

“Well, I could ask another. Another time though, right?”

He knows she feels it when his breath catches. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to see her, and he doesn’t allow himself to question her intention.

“Right, another time.” Her breath catches this time and he holds her tighter as she sways closer. Their lips brush, and he says, “I promise.”

Emma presses into him, lets out a hasty, “Me, too,” saving her breath so that she can steal his with the warm slide of her mouth against his, and then her hand grabbing him, palm flat against his chest so that she can feel his heart pulsing in his chest to the steady rhythm of her –

 _Emma. Emma. Emma_.

He vaguely hears another “Oh, yeah! Happy Birthday, Killian,” shouted at him but he isn’t offended this time, can’t be anything but happy at the reminder that today his birthday, and Emma’s right here with him – for now and forever.

She’s promised, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for enjoying this story!


End file.
